I had no idea burn-outs are contagious. But that’s the only explanation I can come up with for the staggering amount of friends I’ve seen suffering from it this year. And while watching them struggle made me feel crushed and powerless, it also gave me lots of opportunities to observe causes, symptoms and antidotes.

Based on these observations, I believe the MBTI-typology can give us more insight into burn-outs, specifically:

Okay guys, sorry, sorry, sorry. In true ENTP-fashion I got completely distracted by other projects and life in general and so this blog has been quite empty for a while. But there is this one topic sitting in my mind that’s been on my mind for quite a while. That’s Ne running wild, which is especially annoying if for instance you want to go to sleep. And your mind just spirals out of control. And you end up with Insomnia. Again.

The reason I’m blogging about this today is because I know quite a few ENTP’s (and just Ne-doms and –auxies in general) who have this problem. And not all of them deal with it in a very healthy way. Many use drugs or alcohol to gain some focus and just numb down the spiral. And while I’m not against using drugs or alcohol per se, I don’t think it’s a good way to deal with your mind. So let’s talk about an alternative.

Less than a week till a new year starts, and though it’s a rather arbitrary moment to develop new resolutions, plenty of people still do it. For many ENTPs, one of the most important resolutions of 2017 (and frankly each year before that) is

Get shit done. Follow through on ideas and actually finish things.

Good news: this is perfectly possible and you don’t even have to become an XSXJ in the process. However, the “how to” might be not what you expected.

Nobody likes talking more than ENTPs. That being said, we might seem utterly bored listening to your account of your day at work, gossips or news about sports or politics. In my experience, this can cause problems especially if you have Se high in your stack. We don’t really care about what happens in real life. We might pretend we care, out of love for you, but that’s not the same. It’s not that we don’t care about you, we do. It’s just that we don’t see the point in discussing something that’s already happened. However, this might be important to you. The other way around, we love talking about abstract ideas, often hypothetical situations and so on, while you probably couldn’t care less. This can become a big problem, but there is a way out, as long as you’re both willing to work on it.

Okay, so my boyfriend – who is ISTP – was kind of grudgingly saying there are no clear ISTPs playing main characters in popular movies and/or series. I thought for a moment and then came up with Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games. Online, opinions seem divided between her being INTJ (most popular notion, god knows why), ISTP and ISTJ. So then I started typing this post, trying to argue why she’s an ISTP. However, surprisingly, halfway I got an interesting idea: what if Katniss is not an ISTP? What if she’s a disfunctional ESTP?

Last week I was too busy writing other stuff, and I actually wanted to tell you all about it today, but a different topic came to mind and it’s so important I’ve decided to write about that one instead: ENTP’s ideas of trust and lying.

My personal trust pattern goes a bit like this: I meet someone, based on my intuition I either trust them or I don’t. If I trust them, they can mess up a lot, and I’ll still trust them in that I’ll welcome them into my life and will forgive their mistakes. However, if I catch them lying to my face without a clear reason even once, even with something small, my trust is gone. And yes, extreme as that sounds, this includes practical jokes.

Nobody likes liars, of course, but ENTPs have a problem with them on a whole new level. If you’re hanging out with an ENTP, even a small lie might break the trust between the two of you, no matter how close you are. That’s not because we’re super sensitive (and remarkably it’s also not because we value honesty over everything, it’s not like we never lie ourselves, and yes that makes us hypocrites). Quite the opposite, it’s a logical, though often subconscious, thing.

One of the most common misconceptions about ENTPs is that we don’t use lists. You know, stuff like task lists. Being a huge fan of lists (and currently mastering the art of bullet journaling) I’ve been wondering if this trait of mine was characteristically non-ENTP. But you know what? I don’t think it is.

Here’s the thing with lists (and also the reason I tell people not to take quantitative personality tests too seriously): there’s a variety of reasons to use them. Many people mistakenly believe that using lists is a sign of ‘J’: lists are seen as a way to create clarity, define a plan that is to be followed. And I’m not going to argue: they certainly can be. For me, it’s different.

There was this one situation, several years back. I was hanging out with some friends I considered my best friends. By that time, we’ve known each other for I think 7 years or so and we started talking about our significant others and I said I would accept any S/O they had the way that person was, because they were my best friends and so their life partners were part of the deal as far as I was concerned. A stunned silence followed, after which one of my friends said: “uhm… I’ve never expected you to feel this way. You say we’re your best friends, but I feel like I don’t know anything about you.” To my surprise, my other friends felt exactly the same way. Now this was absolutely shocking to me, because I felt they knew a lot about me. I felt like I was opening up plenty of time. And so, turning it over in my mind, I came to the conclusion that the problem was with them. I put in so much effort, so if they still didn’t know me, that must mean they didn’t care.

Whenever I check out ENTP blogs and discussion boards, one of the questions that pops up a LOT is this: how do I choose the right career? Now the reason most ENTPs struggle with this question is twofold:

We’re good at finding connections between seemingly unrelated topics. As a result, we don’t like being pigeonholed into a job title where we have to stick to our own private island of marketing or finance or HR.

We’re usually good at managing things (that’s because we see connections between different stuff and use this knowledge to keep track of a great many things at once). However, most entry-level positions do not include management tasks and our direct and honest approach rubs enough seniors the wrong way that we often don’t make it to the management layer in the first place.

For me, this has been a huge struggle and more so because I didn’t know I was an ENTP. For years, I honestly believed something was wrong with either me or the world. It’s only recently that I’ve encountered some wonderful advice on choosing a job, and more specifically choosing your first job.

You: “Oh man, that sounds fucked up. Have you considered doing X? Have you tried Y? I just read about Z, maybe that will help! Hey, I’m good at doing A, do you want me to do A for you?”

Friend: “… no, that won’t work, I’ve tried X and Y, and Z is not a good fit for me and A? Thanks, but no thanks”

The longer I spend coming up with solutions, the more distant the other person becomes. And at some point I realize they just don’t want to solve their issue. Frustrating shit: what the hell are they whining about then?

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Welcome to Sensing Sage! This website is for curious thinkers with a strong intuition and the ability to drive practically anyone up the wall with their love for discussions. In short: it's a home for ENTPs. Take a look around. If you're suffering from a "what the hell is this place", please visit these pages to find out more about...